“WHO ARE YOU GOING TO LISTEN TO?” Job 8:1-7
INTRO – Ever gotten to the place in your life where you wonder, “Does my life really matter? What does it all really mean? All this energy and effort in studying, working, serving – is it really necessary? Is it making a difference?”
We’ll all find ourselves in this place at some point in our lives. We’ll all be asking these questions in some form or fashion. We’ll all ask WHY or at least be tempted to ask WHY. We know we’re living a good life, trying to do the right things, working hard to be a good citizen, a good church member, a good parent, a good student, a good Christian. And yet, we still have bad things come into our lives, and we want to know WHY. In my own life, I think about these things:
- Why did my mother get cancer?
- Why did my best friend and his wife lose their baby to SIDS?
- Why did a well-loved, faithful pastor I know run over and kill a little girl who ran out into the street?
- Why is another well-known pastor’s son addicted to drugs?
- Why did a godly elderly woman who was the most faithful member of her church get hit and killed by a car while riding her bike?
When those times come to our lives – and like we discussed last week, they ARE going to come – we’ll always have those well-meaning, well-intentioned but ill-informed people who want to give you advice, wanted or unwanted. Definition of advice – “opinion about what could or should be done about a situation or problem.” That’s exactly what some folks feel is their mission in life – to give you THEIR opinion about what’s going on in YOUR life, whether you want it or not. And that’s exactly what happened to Job when his 3 friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, showed up.
Look at Job 2:11-13 – Give these guys a little bit of a break here at first. They ought to be commended for some of the things they did. They did come to Job when they heard about the tragedies he had suffered. In his time of need, his 3 friends came to him with sensitive and sympathetic hearts, at least at first.
v. 13b – “No one said a word, for they saw that his suffering was too great for words.” They came to him, wept for and with him, and sat quietly w/ him as he grieved the loss of his children, his livelihood, and his health. If only they had continued to sit quietly w/ Job!
Most of the time, this is all a person who is suffering and grief-stricken needs from you. Your presence is all they need most of the time. They certainly don’t need sermons or opinions; they just need a friend, a shoulder to lean on or cry on, a hand to hold on to. Shaggy told Scooby in Scooby Doo Movie – “Friends don’t quit!”
All of these men in Job’s life, and Job himself, adhered to a strict cause-and-effect law of blessing and cursing.:
- God ALWAYS blessed good people.
- God ALWAYS cursed bad people.
- Good people were never supposed to suffer.
- Bad people were the only ones who suffered.
The 3 friends felt like it was their job to help Job admit to whatever sin in his life was causing his great suffering. Truth is that they said some good things. There was some truth in their advice and counsel to Job. There are consequences to sin that cause suffering in our lives and in the lives of others. But this was not the case w/ Job. Their advice did not apply to Job.
Conventional wisdom is not always right. We can’t always make sense of some things that happen. We can’t always explain the reasons for our suffering, and certainly can’t explain it in someone else’s life. We can’t always make everything add up just right in a neat little package. The story does not always end w/ “And they lived happily ever after.”
When you are battling confusion in the midst of your suffering, or when life just doesn’t seem to make sense and you need some direction, who are you going to listen to?
I. Are you going to listen to those who make judgments w/out all the facts? This is what Eliphaz did – ch. 4-5.
- El’s attitude was insulting and derogatory – “Will you be patient and let me say a word? For who could keep from speaking?” (4:2).
- His attitude undermined and ridiculed Job – “Does your reverence for God give you no confidence? Shouldn’t you believe that G will care for those who are upright? (4:6).
- He had an arrogant, “know-it-all” attitude – “As I have observed… (4:8) “A word was secretly brought to me…” (4:12) “We have examined this, and it is true. So hear it, and apply it to yourself.” (5:27).
El’s judgment – his WRONG judgment – was that God was disciplining Job for some unknown sin. While it is true that in some cases, God does discipline to bring us back to Him when there is sin in our lives, it was not true in Job’s life. There is the “sowing and reaping” principle that Paul talked about in Gal. 6:7 – “Remember that you can’t ignore God and get away w/ it. You will always reap what you sow.” This is a Scriptural principle that we all need to know about. But it simply was not the case in Job’s life, and it’s not always the case in suffering today.
ILLUS. – Hospital Chaplain Norris Burkes went on full alert when he heard that a family of stab victims would arrive at the emergency room in a few minutes. The family was entertaining a friend in their home who had a dark secret -- he was a crack addict. The tranquil visit turned into a nightmare when he ran out of crack and lost his sanity. He demanded money from his hosts, and when they wouldn’t comply with his request, he began stabbing them.
It was horrible. Blood was everywhere. The father died. The baby was critical. Mom was stable. Big sister was in the best shape physically, but emotionally she’d entered the twilight zone. As the doctors worked with those needing medical attention, Chaplain Burkes took the ten year old girl into the chapel to pray.
Her prayers began very innocent, like you’d expect to hear from a little girl. She asked God to help her family recover and that everything would be OK. Then her prayers lost their innocence, as she had that night, and became brutally honest. "She demanded to know why God let her father die," Chaplain Burkes said, and "she had a few choice words for her house guest as well."
Rage got the best of her, she swept the candles off of the altar and began overturning chairs in the chapel. The Chaplain called for the nurse supervisor, who held the child in her arms and took her back into the ER to give her a sedative.
According to El’s way of thinking, this girl must have sinned in some way b/c of the suffering she was going through. Be careful about listening to those who make judgments w/out all the facts. And be careful about doing that yourself.
II. Are you going to listen to those who are stuck in the past? This was Bildad, the traditionalist – ch. 8.
His attitude was harsher than Eliphaz’s.
- Made a heartless, cruel statement about Job’s kids – “Your children obviously sinned against God, so their punishment was well-deserved.” (8:4) – I think this is when I would have punched him in the mouth!
- His trite little, “if you’ll pray, everything will be OK” was so empty & shallow – “But if you pray to God and seek the favor of the Almighty…he will rise up & restore your happy home” (8:5-6).
His wisdom was based on that of former generations – “Ask the former generations & find out what their fathers learned” – (8:8). In Bildad’s mind, God had always worked this way as far as he knew. Bildad is the person who is buried in his past. He finds fault w/ Job b/c he thinks Job has no regard for his elders, no respect for tradition, no concern for what others want him to be.
Bildad shows his spiritual insecurity and instability. He’s the person who won’t let himself look at new ideas. As one pastor put it, “Bildad just puts everything into a neat little philosophy, a textbook theology, b/c down deep Bildad is afraid of himself. He doesn’t trust himself. He clings to the past. All he knows is to hang on to tired old ways…” (Joseph Smith, “Consider the Source,” www.sermoncentral.com).
Certainly nothing wrong w/ looking to the past for some direction, but there’s definitely something wrong w/ staying in the past. Nothing wrong w/ tradition, but there’s definitely something wrong w/ traditionalism. If you are looking for meaning and direction and you listen to the Bildads, you will find fault w/ those who are changing things and questioning the way things have always been done.
III. Are you going to listen to those who feel spiritually superior to others? This was Zophar – ch. 11. He’s the person who is so heavenly-minded that he could do no earthly good.
Harshest of the 3. Obviously felt spiritually superior to Job and the others. Had been sitting and listening to Job’s responses to Eliphaz and Bildad and had gotten mad. Told Job not to question God, but get right w/ Him.
Look at 11:1-6 – Think about the damage that these kinds of words can do to someone who is hurting. These are definitely not the kinds of folks that we need to listen to when we are searching for meaning and direction.
CONCLUSION – We are all going to suffer in this life. We are all going to know someone who is suffering. We are all going to need some help when we’re suffering. And we are all going to have the opportunity to give help to someone who is suffering.
So we have some choices to make today. We can be the kind of person who is quick to make judgments about a person’s life when we really don’t know all the facts. We can be a spiritually insecure, unstable person who is stuck in the past. We can be a person who feels spiritually superior to others and is quick to let them know that.
Or we can be the kind of person who is surrendered completely to Christ and recognizes the need to depend totally on Him. We can be the kind of person who knows that we don’t have all the answers, but knows the One who is the Ultimate Answer to every problem. We can be the kind of person who learns from the past, lives in the present, and knows that greater days are ahead b/c our future is held firmly in the hands of Almighty God. This is the kind of person we need to be and the kind of person we need to listen to.
Are you this person? If not, you can be today if you will turn loose of the reins of your life and place them in the nail-scarred hands of Jesus.
